Week 6 Flashcards
Mediatization
- The way that other institutions adjust to the logic of the media institution: you need to play the game by media’s rules
- Media are powerful agents with their own goals, interests and values
- All societal institutions are to a certain degree exposed to media(tization) pressures
- This process in change is mutual in nature - organizations adapt to media, but media need to adapt to changes as well
Institutions
Domain or field of social life that is governed by a particular set of formal and informal rules, displays a particular structure, serves certain social functions and allocates resources for action in various ways
Institutional perspective
Processes of change within an institution are viewed as an exchange between different logics from particular societal institutions meeting and blending
Levels of analysis
- macro = societal level
- meso = institutional level
- micro = individual level
Today’s corporations (Ilhlen & Pallas)
- have become perhaps the most dominant institution in modern society
- are embedded in increasingly complex and conflicting socio-economic contexts
- are critically scrutinized by the media
- which has led to an increasing investment of media relations
Ihlen & Pallas defining features of the mediatization process
- they play a role in how different societal actors relate and understand each other
- it is possible for institutions to take advantage of these processes through the practice of media relations
Why is positive coverage so important?
Gaining legitimacy and achieving a good reputation through the media serves multiple goals:
1. increased sales
2. acceptance of customers of price increases
3. attracting investors
4. helping recruit and hold on to valued employees
5. build brands
6. lessens media criticism
Effects of mediatization in organizations
Media practices are integrated in the entire organization:
1. communication professionals in corporate boards
2. interaction with media: spokesperson, rise of superstar CEO
3. timing: communication adjusted to rhythm of media
4. the structure of organization aligned with media strategy
How to practice media relations?
- employ pseudo events
- meet the media’s demands for conflicts, faces and feelings
- respect journalists’ deadlines and be responsive
- cultivate/maintain relationships with journalists
- construct frames that are resonant with culture
- be proactive
- create archives and databases for media requests/reports
Bureaucracies
Refers to a body of non-elected government officials and an administrative policy-making group. They operate on behalf of government
Logic of bureaucracies
bureaucracies have clear organizational borders and formal rules based on a comprehensive set of procedures and norms of conduct derived from regulations and law
News logic
- the news logic brings with it a specific rhythm and a certain relation to time and timeliness
- news logic is founded on the premise that news is and should be important and significant
- the power of news logic is based on the assumption that the media offer a description of reality that matters and has consequences for those described
Logic of appropriateness
- Defines a basis for decision making biased toward what social norms deem right rather than what cost-benefit calculations consider best
- Rules of the media are regarded as self-evident, natural
- Contrast: clear formal rules based on regulation and law (public bureaucracies)
Four responses of bureaucracies to mediatization
- Adapting to rhythm of news
- Adapting to language and format news
- Believe in significance in the news
- Reallocating resources
Four responses - adapting to rhythm of news
- always available for media, media requests are always being prioritized
- timeliness important part of media logic
- proactive: preparing press releases in advance
- timing: expected to continuously strive to pitch positive news stories in order to set the news agenda; on the other hand, they are expected to provide press release on unpopular or delicate matters at a time when media attention is directed elsewhere
Four responses - adapting to language and format news
- news is typically episodic (focusing on single events) favors informal language, is constructed as a story
- these news conventions shape reactions of the organizations
- texts are adjusted to meet news media demand for conflict faces and feelings (tension with need to be comprehensive, factual)
- language and format extent to other communication of the organization
Four responses - belief in significance of the news
- political parties and government are aware of media importance: steady growth in communication budgets and communication staff, professionalization of media strategies and political spin
- Findings from interviews: media coverage necessary for reputation and public perception of organization
Four responses - reallocating resources
- probably the most fundamental effect of mediatization
- changes in priorities of handling issues and cases
- changes in policies, laws, regulation or decisions (critical media coverage can lead to abrupt change of policy or law)
- public services are financed by taxes: is it justified to spend substantial amounts of time and resources on media relations?
Upside mediatization (Tjorb)
Mediatization has made public administration more transparent and accessible
Downside mediatization (Tjorb)
- Subordination to the press (they feel dominated by the press)
- Media can give distorted view of most important issues, leading to wrong prioritization
- Public administration devotes substantial resources to something that is not their core business
- Mediatization can drive public bureaucracy to populist, arbitrary rule
Mediatization of science
- Stakeholders from politics, science and in between
- Scientific institutions need to legitimate their existence to the public
- Consequence of New Public management: standardization, internalization, competition and implementation of (external) evaluative criteria
- External stakeholders demand that scientists leave the ivory tower and engage with the general public
Scheu’s analytical categories
- structures
- strategies
Structures - Scheu
- Structures of expectations are about organizational structures, norms, roles and scripts
- Structures of interpretations means that organizations/actors adapt their objectives, motives, practical knowledge, or judgment criteria
Strategies - Scheu
Mediatization strategies serve to control and manage media attention
1. Offensive strategies: proactively advancing structural adaptions to reach their objectives
2. Defensive strategies: avoiding media attention, minimizing risks. More passive/reactive (technical). Motivation: fear of losing autonomy by adapting to media logic
Adaptions to media logic of science-policy stakeholders
- structure of expectations
- structure of interpretations
Structure of expectations - adaptions Sheu
- integration of media skills into competence profiles
- establishment of media policies in organizations
- establishment of rules and regulations concerning media contacts
- professionalization/extension of media and PR departments
- Orientation to perceived journalistic practices concerning external communication
Structures of interpretations - adaptions Scheu
- establishment of an inventory of knowledge about journalism
- only sporadic adaptions of evaluative orientations
- third-person-effect concerning medicalization of evaluative orientations
Typology of mediatization in science
Type 1: Opposing mediatization
Type 2: Working towards mediatization
Type 3: Defensive mediatization
Type 4: Balanced mediatization
Type 5: Offensive mediatization
Findings on mediatization of science
- all interviewees report structural transformations related to media logic
- most are in the category of ‘rather extensively mediatized’
- question is not if they should adapt to media, but which strategy to choose
- changes in structures of expectations (structures, norms, policies)
- limitations: this is only based on self-reporting
Mediatization in Sport
- Sports organisations taking control: from facilitators for sport media to competitors: ‘deep mediatization’ (organisations becoming media platforms)
- More sport, less journalistic resources -> increasing shift in power balance
- Sports organisations increasingly setting or controlling the media agenda
- Problem for sport journalists, who need access to sport organisations but now
‘compete for clicks and views’
Sport journalism: ‘cheerleading’ or objective reporting?
- Often promoting and celebrating the sport, no critical reporting
- With in-house platforms taking over, objective or critical reporting even more unlikely
- Findings: more cheerleading, less critical reporting in in-house publications
‘media releases doubling as news stories’
